


Playing Bass at the Apocalypse

by Xewleer



Category: Music - Fandom, Original Story, Rick and Morty
Genre: Famous Side Characters, Galactic Talent Show, Gen, Original Story - Freeform, Rick and Morty - Freeform, Science Fiction, Short Story, life and death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-08 20:39:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5512451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xewleer/pseuds/Xewleer





	Playing Bass at the Apocalypse

Hallow Tuvache, Hal to his friends, played a mean bass. It shook in your teeth and never seemed to stop. He knew how to manipulate the cords and the beat so that the drummers, Guitarists and singers all melded together to create something more. 

He was of an old school. The school wear pupils were kicked out for a mistake, murdered for a dropped cord and hung for a pitiable scale. Hal liked to exaggerate his childhood. Really, he had lovely parents, a great, kind old teacher and a good band. He liked to scare people a bit. It wasn't hard. He was fifty years old. His hands were clawed and his face, scarred. His eyes were burnt pits. Not that he minded. He was never a visual guy. 

He played without ceasing on the Terran Airways. Radio, podcast and ansible beam. Quantum particles vibrated to his strings. A deep bass reverb throughout the solar system. Training, ever training.

Twenty years ago, a whole generation, aliens came down, and demanded that we 'show me what you got'. We patiently explained that we had won the contest some time ago, and that the aliens could go sod off. They zapped the person who said that and demanded that one of our bands come and play for them at the Galactic, Concert Hall to the Cosmos. The first were an old man and his grandson, who proceeded to get knocked out first round, as 'Get Shwifty' was old hat by then. 

The earth didn't blow up, but the stakes were high anyway. Because of their failure, human pop-stars tanked in the inter-galactic market. Earth was mocked and several alien invasion fleets, showed up, put on amazing concerts and left. We weren't sure what that was about, but we were damn sure not letting it happen again. So we sent up our best.

Hal was among that group. It was a simple five piece of Alt Rockers that dwelt between good old-fashioned rock and roll and metal. Hal was the bassist, he really didn't remember the rest of them. It had been twenty years. They were dead. Burned alive on the second place stage. He could remember The pain and screaming. No one told the humans that the first and second place bands battled to the death. On stage, in various ways. What cruelty. What Stakes! What Ratings!

That was when Hal went blind. He kept playing. The horror and flames surrounding him. The drummer's hands shattered. The Guitarists, one after another, fell down dead, hands bleeding and guitars broken. The singer collapsed, unable to sing any more. But Hal continued. They were facing the greatest band the Universe had ever known. Hal fought the greatest bassist the universe had known. His was a simple bass, nothing special. Generic in brand. It shattered in his hands. His opponent's was forged in a neutron star and strung with the sinews of a space-cat from a world where all ate metal. The cat was fed nothing but gold, silver and steel, with heavier minerals than we have on our periodic table of elements for added strength. The strings strung were considered unbreakable. Even one string was worth worlds. 

Their singer had an alien skull for a face whose vocal cords had no limitations. Their drummer had four arms and drums made of alien hides undiscovered. The Guitarist played a guitar with three necks made in the same forge as the bass, but the strings were enlarged quantum ultra strings, and could be heard in twelve dimensions. The Pianist banged on some sort of organ, made of flesh, it screamed and wailed with the skull-faced singer, for it lived. 

But Hal lived. His eyes were burnt out. He was left for dead, but he still lived.

The next time, no one wanted to go but a brave one-man band. He got to third place, but his whirlie-gig became unbalanced and the computer went crazy. What happened after could only be described as a stomping ode to the Star Spangled Banner and the Marseilles. The next, was a man who could whistle like a trumpeter. He did not get far, as whistling is offensive to many alien cultures. 

Hal was interviewed. "Why should you continue with that thing? You survived. Good job. Rest and heal."

"The Bass Must be Played." He ground out. He was tuning a bass. He practiced as he talked.

"Sure sure, but what about your new chance at life? We can get you new eyes, you know. You have all kinds of money and grants coming in. Never have to work again. Why face the pain?"

"You don't get it. The Bass must be played. Even in the Apocalypse, as God comes down with his avenging armies, someone will be playing the bass." 

Hal was convinced to train the 'Transcendence'. A string band of twenty guitarists, bassists, Cellist and every other stringed instrument around. They were dedicated to God, and ever practiced to discover new ways of playing and new strings and chords. He told them what to expect and how to carry themselves. The went out. Second place again, but they died, all, to a man. At the end of it, only the bassist, Ars Koler, lived longer than an hour. Hal never took a student after.

Then others came, and death was accepted. Ever Hal lived in the background. After the death of Ars, he participated no more. He retreated to some broadcasting station. Food and drink was brought to him by hands who did not speak. But he played. He was given a bass made of rare woods and meteoric iron. The strings were brought to him. This messenger spoke, and said. "This is strong stuff. Made of women's beards, fishes breath and Mountain's roots like Gleipnir of old. We added gravity's weight and Sun-song for depth. To forge it, my agents went down into the great red spot and captured the smallest portion of the gale for purity of sound." The messenger left without another word. 

Hal strung the guitar and played on. These strings were finer than any human hand had ever played before. He continued playing. Old rockers, mystical Bluegrass players, Metal heads and jazz musicians came to him. Telling him one thing, then another, he refined his style. Students came to him. He refused to talk to them. However, that didn't stop them from coming to him to learn. They watched his hands and grew in skill themselves.

Some alien species gave up fighting the skull-faced band. They had lived and played a thousand years. They took the ridicule. Some with honor, some with defiance, some with nonchalance. All succumbed to that band. 

Hal was approached. A singer who had a voice as smooth and rich as dark chocolate. A pair of guitarists who could play as fast as sound itself. A drummer who could shatter rock with his beat. A Pianist who could play so delicately that even cruel men were moved to weep, and so strongly that brave men quailed. 

He joined them. He had felt them come a long time away. A mention of the singer here. Someone copying the guitarists and failing. So on. He knew they would come for him. He felt it in the music. Or Maybe. It was mystical shit. Like Blues musicians. They can come and go as they please. You can't define it as anything else. Destiny, maybe fate. It was just as inevitable. 

They left to the Galactic, Concert Hall to the Cosmos. They played well, and soon, the battle for first would begin. They were accompanied by fanfair and crowds. Fifty headbangers dedicated themselves to use their very bodies as shields against the initial onslaught. Their headbanging, provided it was to the beat, would increase the power of the human champions' music. Twenty years on, humanity would take the first place title!

Hal heard a voice calling to him. "Sir! Sir! Please! Your blessing! I ask of it!" He stopped, he recognized that voice. "I am the son of Ars Koler! Because he could not bless me when I became a man, I demand yours!" Hal stopped and turned to the voice.

"Hand me your bass."

It was handed to him. "This a new bass, but I sense its potential. What is it made of?"

"A crashed Spaceship's antenna, unknown material, wood from the True Cross and screws of diamond. Strung with plaited carbon nano-tubes. But I'm looking for something better."

"Hrm. This is a bass that lusts for the playing. It will not be satisfied until you do." He held his hands out, and the son of Ars Koler put his head under them. "That you would always have the best chords, the greatest will, and that you would stand at the Apocalypse, so the bass must be played." He left.

The played against Skull-face and his band. Their drummer looked at Hal's and nodded. The drummer nodded back and eyed each other, like warriors on the field. The Guitarists made gestures and waited. The singer looked down on the skull-faced alien. The bassist stared at Hal, who bent double over his bass, and prepared his soul. The pianist merely stretched his fingers while his opposite number stretched his organ. 

They played. Seven hours they played. The head bangers did much to keep off the worst of it, but they fell. Then the pianist began to bleed from his fingers. The guitarists became more wild. Hal played on, undaunted. He focused on the harmonies of the alien bassist, and any flaw he could exploit. 

The singer suffocated as her own lungs collapsed from exhaustion. The guitarists' instruments broke and snapped. The pianist's fingers became bone. The drummer's sticks splintered and wrists ached. Hal kept playing. He believed he had found the slightest flaw. The fires began. The drummers arms gave out and he burned to death. The singer died writhing. The guitarists were burnt and the pianist stopped playing, giving in. Hal kept focusing on that flaw. He was alone. The power was overwhelming. Terrible. 

The bassist was sweating. He couldn't keep up. Hal's bass was not giving in. How could he snap strings that technically didn't exist? Gravity gives weight, but has none. The sun doesn't sing. Women don't have beards. Fish cannot breath as men do. Mountains are not like growing things, having roots! He focused on the bass itself. The meteor iron, Starmetal, was well forged. Before, he was resisted by the complete band. Alone, Hal could not be as defensive. The rest of the Skull-face band stopped playing. They were content to see the end if their bassist could do it. 

"I've spent a million hours in simulations. Time slowed down so I could play beyond the life span of any mortal."

Hal Played on.

"I've a bass forged in a Neutron Star and strung by the sinews of cat's your species has never seen!"

Hal Played on. He had a good grip on the flaws in the opponent's bass now. One molecule out of alignment. 

"I've fought ten million battles. I played the bass at the first contest against beings of pure energy playing instruments that were powered by burning stars!"

"But you will not be playing this bass at the apocalypse." Hal lead into a riff, a series of chords. He pushed the bass higher, the volume higher, the reverberations beyond understanding.

The guitar shattered in a rain of light and radiation. But the Bassist, trusting in the strength of his guitar, co-opted Hal's beat. As Hal destroyed his guitar, he pierced Hal's abandoned defenses and killed him. Hal sunk to his knees. The fire raged about him. The bassist laughed at the group accepted their laurels. 

The son of Ars Koler leaped onto the stage. With his teeth, for he would not risk his hands to the fire, he pulled away the bass from the wreck of Hallow Tuvache. He burned his face, and the strings came loose and destroyed his eyes. He was led away, but he kept the strings. Soon, he had taken Hal's old perch and began playing once again.

On earth, during that time, three things happened. In Cleveland, a girl, a Daughter of Eve, was born who cried so sublimely that others cried with her. A rocker, who had followed Hal his entire life, went to the roof of his apartment and wailed on his guitar for all to hear. A woman heard and fell in love with him. They copulated on that roof as the vibrations of his songs tingled in the atmosphere. They produced twins who moved fingers, as babies, as chords on the guitar. Lastly, a cruise ship was attacked by pirates and sunk. The band's drummer survived, mad and raving. He washed ashore onto a beach. To relieve his boredom, he made the coconuts and drift wood into a drum set and practiced to pass the time.

Twenty years on they would be gathered together. They would take the son of Ars Koler, and face the Skull-face band. But the Bassist would not have his accustomed bass. It would be inferior. It takes a thousand years to forge something in a Neutron star. It takes two hundred to make the sinews of the metal eating cat into strings. He held his old bass, which was double-necked, made out of a diamond from the core of a gas giant, with strings of dark matter that encased a center string of antimatter in each. A powerful bass, but the son of Ars Koler was ready. 

Skull-face could only grin, but he seemed eager. More eager than he had been in a millennia. These humans had been really difficult opponents. He remembered with what relish his species could muster the fights over the years. Twenty years ago. Forty years ago. Never had a species been so musically obsessed.

The battle lasted 30 days, a standard galactic month. The Galactic, the Concert Hall to the Cosmos, which was designed to hold such contests and the powers sonic that were unleashed, gave up. It ceased function and declared a tie. Both groups shook hands. Except for the bassists. The son of Ars Koler had slain him five notes in.


End file.
